


How to Successfully Prevent Civil War

by Dormammu



Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (mention) - Freeform, Avengers Family, Avengers Tower, Civil War (Marvel), Civil War Averted, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Surprises, Talking, Wedding Fluff, When in doubt - 3490 it, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 20:52:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8593258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dormammu/pseuds/Dormammu
Summary: With Powers Act getting more and more in the way of their Avenging and Cap and Iron Man seemingly on the brink of yet another big fight, Avengers fear that a new, bigger than ever, split is coming their way.The five of them hold a secret meeting hoping to find a solution that will keep the team together.They're in for a surprise from the two teammates they didn't invite.





	

"Is anyone going to say something?" Widow said, an impatient look on her face aimed at everyone gathered in the Avengers' common room. "I have other things to do, you know? Information to gather, criminals to drop-kick, bones to crack? The usual."

"Yeah, what is this about?" said Hulk.

"What is this about _and_ why are only five of us here?" chimed in Hawkeye. "Where are our Fearless Leader and his Number One?"

Widow, Hulk and Hawkeye turned to look at Thor and Falcon. They had been the ones who wanted this meeting, Thor even went to trouble to make custom invitations to the meeting for the three of them. With gold lettering.

"Settle down, friends," said Thor. "'Tis our, as you call them, fearless leaders Falcon and I wished to discuss." He turned to look at Falcon and made a small motion with his hand. Every other head in the room turned to look at Falcon as well.

Falcon took a deep breath and with some hesitation said: "Yeah, this is about Cap and Iron Man. And that Powers Act."

"Aye!" said Thor.

Everyone nodded, realizing the meeting was justified and well overdue. They let Falcon continue.

"They are pretty... Well, you know. Argumentative? On a good day," said Falcon, looking at them for signs of agreement.

Other Avengers nodded or said yeah.

Falcon continued, "Ever since that Powers Act started interfering in our Avenging, they have been..." He stopped there, as if unable to find an adequate word.

"Loco?" Hawkeye chimed in.

"Impossible?" said Widow.

"I didn't notice nothing," said Hulk, shrugging. Thor gave him a pointed look. "Ok. Maybe last week. The MODOK attack."

"Yes!" said Hawkeye. "Sheesh, Tony was really ticked off when Cap told him he should program his suit not to gratuitously demolish so many windows!"

"But I saw him working on that program the next evening," said Widow. Everyone turned to look at her, this was new information. Speculative clamor filled the room.

"Ok, ok," said Sam. "What about the week before last?"

Avengers went silent. Everyone remembered that fight. Everyone wanted to forget all about it as soon as possible.

 

It happened few days after Hulk had gotten his Avengers status back - officially, by the President himself. A few days was all Hulk had to once more enjoy winning Veggies of Valor games and lording it over Thor and Hawkeye. Avengers' old enemies Hyperion and Nighthawk had escaped from the subterranean supermax security prison Avengers had put them in, and they wanted revenge.

In the middle of the fight, Nighthawk messed with Iron Man's chestplate, attaching to it one of his gadgets. This invention of his upped the density of the thing it attached to and thus its weight tenfold. Cap told Tony that they could deal with the two Squadron members without him, to stay put until they made Nighthawk turn off the device. Tony would have none of it. Instead, he took the chestplate off and went into battle without it. In his own words of defense afterwards, the rest of his armor was still functional and they were fighting two of the most powerful Squadron Supreme members, which meant Iron Man, even with a part missing, was indispensable.

The Avengers won, in a couple of hours Hyperion and Nighthawk were on their way to two maximum security facilities on opposite sides of the globe. But not before Hyperion used his eye-lasers to cut Tony from shoulder to navel. Not before Cap saw what was about to happen, lunged to protect Tony with his shield, even though he had been fighting Nighthawk 30 feet away at that moment, and failed.

Tony survived, Hyperion didn't go deep enough to hit any organs, and the undersuit protected Tony somewhat. But there was blood everywhere, and for the five minutes it took to cage Hyperion and Nighthawk, Cap went ballistic. He was yelling orders, punching harder than he ever punched before, reflecting Hyperion's lasers at his face, yelling at FRIDAY to prepare the emergency supplies in the Avenjet, yelling at Tony to hang in there... It was something. But it was nothing compared to what happened once they were back in the tower and Tony expertly patched up.

Cap, all calm politeness, told the other Avengers to hold the fort because he and Tony had some things to discuss and not to interrupt them unless there's an end-of-the-world emergency. He was acting like regular Cap, except if you looked into his eyes, they resembled a whirlpool illuminated by lightning. Hawkeye's description.

Cap calmly closed the door to the conference room. Remaining Avengers went after their own business. Until they heard loud noises from the conference room, with a loud exclamation here and there. Cap and Iron man were going at it, hard. Only instead of one of them storming out after half an hour at most, they stayed in the conference room for three hours. From the sounds heard all over the Tower, despite the Hulk-proofed thick walls, they were fighting, then breaking stuff, then fighting some more, then breaking some more stuff. For three hours.

They came out looking awful. Hawkeye saw Cap, said he looked like he came out of a bar brawl only to be run over by a truck. Widow saw Iron Man as he was walking to his lab. He looked messy but hyper to her. His face was flushed, eyes feverish, and he was talking to himself. She spotted no blood or anything, however, so she chose not to engage him and went on her way.

  
Cap and Tony wouldn't speak to each other for three days after that. It was the worst. If they had to communicate, they did it through other Avengers, which would've been childish in a group of superheroes other than Avengers. Avengers Game Night was cancelled for that week, to Hawkeye's misery. Cap and Tony were never in the same room. Until the Avengers alarm was sounded. An attack in South Africa had occurred and it had all the signs of Ultron. Cap and Iron Man had to share close quarters in the Avenjet, and somewhere between the two continents they shared a few words. During the mission they exchanged some more, including a joke no one but them understood, and after the mission, they acted as if nothing had been wrong at all, as if the previous three days hadn't happened.

Other Avengers could sense a future fight in the air however, especially whenever Truman Marsh was in the vicinity of the tower.

The guy rubbed them all wrong, but after the whole Red Hulk fiasco, Tony seemed to hate him the most. He hid it of course, acted normal and minimally polite, but as soon as Marsh exited the tower, he went off. Cap's attempts to convince him, make him understand that it was important to listen to Marsh, as he was appointed by the president, who on his part was chosen by the people of America - people they were trying to protect - seemed to only make Tony more and more bitter.

Everyone knew Marsh was the bone of contention between the two men, everyone felt in their gut that things could come to a head between them very soon, with devastating consequences.

 

Avengers' pensive silence lasted for some time. While it was pretty obvious why this meeting was taking place, none of them had any solutions to offer.

"So you think they could break up?" said Hawkeye, looking at something interesting on the floor.

"Yeah," said Falcon.

"Nobody wants this to happen," said Thor, "but this situation does not augur well for Captain and Iron Man's friendship, nay!" he sunk into sofa sadly.

"Does this mean I can lead the Avengers when they're gone?" said Hulk. Everyone looked at him angrily.

"No way," said Hawkeye. "If the Green Mean takes over, I'm out."

"Yeah?" said Hulk angrily. "How about you go out now, through that closed window?"

Widow got up, looking at Hulk and Hawkeye menacingly. They stopped bickering. "Alright guys," she said, "concentrate for one minute. This is important! Do you not understand what this could mean?

"She's right," said Falcon, "listen to Widow."

Widow continued, "The Powers Act, it's in the middle of this problem. Cap wants us to comply to Marsh's orders. Tony wants Marsh out of his hair. He's not used to someone dogging his every step. If they decide to go their separate ways, we too will have to choose." She sat back on the sofa, expecting that everyone had understood the implications of what she just said.

"So it's gonna be like last year?" said Hawkeye. "When Cap and Tony were fighting about Ultron?"

"Only much worse," added Falcon.

"Aye!" said Thor. "A true schism, which could last an indeterminable length of time!"

"Last time was awful!" said Hulk, gesticulating just wildly enough to almost shove Hawkeye off the sofa. "They made me wear a shirt!" He shuddered remembering.

"You had to wear a shirt?" said Hawkeye in a whiny voice, edging back onto sofa. "I had no electricity! Had to steal an old radio from Cap's room!"

"At least you didn't have to live with Cap!" said Falcon. He and Widow exchanged knowing looks. "He was destroying five sandbags per day! When we went on missions, he'd yell at everyone until his voice gave out, which never lasted long - supersoldier vocal chords - and if you tried to approach him and talk to him about it, he'd just run out for a jog. That was all he was doing, jogging, busting up sandbags and yelling like Screaming Mimi on a bad day!"

"Sometimes he'd go on missions without showering." Hulk said. "Hulk liked that, there was someone more stinky than him around."

"Yup," confirmed Widow with a disgusted look on her face.

Thor and Hawkeye looked at them, mouth agape. Other than some mention here and there of the Split and bragging about villains each team took on, hey hadn't shared tales of Cap and Tony's behavior during that time.

"Well," said Hawkeye, "remember that old radio I said I stole from Cap's room? Every day it would disappear from my room and reappear on its spot in Cap's room. I took it again and again, to prove a point mostly, until someone changed the lock on Cap's room and installed an invisible variable electrical field on the doorframe." He shook his head in disbelief. Friendly competition and games were great, but not if they ended up zapping you with electricity.

"The jests I had to endure were surely far worse!" complained Thor. "Iron Man constantly made comments about my muscular build! When the electricity was back on, he tried to introduce me to a television show called Trek of Stars! It was terrible! The aliens called Vulcanoids... Odin's Beard! How do men of Earth expect such a primitive society to... But I digress. Stark hated my scathing comments! He was not much thrilled at my reaction to his jests about my build either. I expect he seek'd an answer different from 'Thank you, my good friend.' or 'I know.'" Thor shrugged, still unsure what exactly he'd done wrong.

"Cap didn't sleep much," said Widow in a low voice. "One time, I caught him in one of SHIELD's observation rooms, looking at traffic camera footage of the Avengers Tower in the night. I think he went there to fall asleep watching it." Now everyone was looking at Widow, mouth agape.

"We can't let this happen again." said Hulk, looking at his feet. "Gotta do something..."

"Avengers are a family, our family," said Thor, his fist tightening around Mjolnir's handle. "We need to do everything that is in our might to keep our family together!"

"I agree," said Sam, nodding. "Maybe we should talk like this with Cap and Tony. Maybe if we say these things to them, share -"

"Say what things?" came a question from the top of a stairwell. It had come from Tony. Few steps behind Tony was Cap. Similar looks of puzzlement were on both their faces. Cap's hair was windswept, while Tony's was helmet-flattened. They had flown in.

But that wasn't the weirdest thing. After all, Tony could never be troubled with taking an elevator if he could fly in, and they all knew Cap could never say no to jumping aboard. Sometimes quite literally. The weirdest thing was their clothing. They were both wearing suits. Tony a dark red one with a shirt in dark gold color under it, topped off with a tie in the same dark red of the suit and a golden handkerchief in the breast pocket of his jacket. Cap was wearing a dark blue suit with a light blue shirt underneath, and a tie that matched the dark blue of the suit, his pocket square was light blue. They both looked pretty spiffy. Some Avengers dared to think they looked like a couple even.

"Where's the party?" said Hulk, breaking the stunned silence. "And why wasn't I invited?"

Other Avengers took this chance to look less suspicious and backed Hulk up with shouts of "Yeah?" and "Me too!"

"Settle down," said Tony. He took a deep breath. "Steve and I have something to say to you all."

Cap took a few steps to stand by his side. Avengers' faces varied from surprised to despondent. _This is it_ , was on all their minds, the Avengers were getting disbanded. And for some reason, Cap and Tony decided to look like photoshoot-ready models when they let them know.

"Steve and I," said Tony, a small smile on his lips, "decided to..." and here another weird thing happened, Cap took Tony's hand into his own, Tony gave it a small squeeze. "... get married."

The Avengers were speechless for a second then the air filled with What's and But how's.

"Ok, settle down, Avengers," said Cap, still holding Tony's hand and interlacing their fingers. "Tony will explain," he said and aimed his best in-as-few-words-as-possible look at him.

"Sit down guys, please," Tony said. Cap gave him an impatient look. "Or don't. Steve and I, well, we started this thing back when the Avengers re-assembled -"

"An arrangement," added Cap.

"Yes, an arrangement," Tony repeated and cocked an eyebrow, waiting for an understanding to dawn on Avengers' faces. Cap had a similar look on his face, only less cocked.

When Falcon, Widow and Thor nodded, Tony continued: "Then, last year when we broke up the Avengers, the arrangement was off as well." Tony sighed and looked at Cap, who sighed in return but didn't let go of Tony's hand. "When we got back together as a team," Tony continued, "we talked and it turned out both of us wanted more from our arrangement. We started dating, or, in our case, going on missions just the two of us and afterwards grabbing something to eat or going to movies together."

"You went to movies without us?" Hawkeye whined. Hulk gave him a nasty look.

"You guys wouldn't have liked those movies anyway," said Cap. "They were... European!"

"Yeah..." added Tony. "They had subtitles, and poor pacing!"

"Can we please get back to the whole Cap and Iron Man are getting married issue here?" Widow said impatiently.

Falcon and Thor nodded vigorously.

"So it was going well," said Tony. "Our mission-dates went swimmingly, and the arrangement was still... spectacular." Cap coughed at that, Tony squeezed his hand once more. "Until Truman Marsh got appointed as our liaison and we got saddled with the Red Hulk." Tony smiled, it looked fake. "I was... unhappy with the new situation."

"You can say that again," said Cap.

"Who's telling the story here, Steve, beloved?" Hulk and Hawkeye made faces at each other hearing this term of endearment.

"As I was saying, I was not happy. Especially when I realized how much this Power Act our good president signed could affect our avenging. But there was a solution to that. The Act referred to Avengers as a group of superpowered individuals, and it affected us only while we were a part of that group."

"Long story short," Cap interrupted, "Tony was thinking about dismantling the Avengers."

Avengers started clamoring once more. Tony looked irritatedly at Cap. Cap motioned to his wrist, Tony relaxed somewhat.

"Yes, ok, I was thinking about it," Tony yelled out to get the Avengers' attention, then continued in a more moderate voice, "I thought the best solution would be to keep fighting as individual heroes, but remain in contact, so if there's some great big danger to Earth, we could reassemble and fight it together. Just not as Avengers."

"I disagreed," said Cap, looking at Avengers' faces. "My opinion was... is, that we need to stay together, train together, and be the first line of earth's defense together."

"Aye!" offered Thor excitedly.

"Anyway, this interfered with our... thing," said Tony. "The arrangement not so much though, you know how fighting..." Cap gave him a tight-lipped glare. "Alright. Steve popped the question after I almost got disemboweled by Hyperion. I said no way. We had a passionate, lengthy..." Tony seemed to get lost in his thoughts.

"Discussion about it," said Cap, blushing, "but it didn't change Tony's mind."

"Cap wanted all of us to stay together as Avengers," said Tony. "Marsh be damned. I thought my idea was better, we'd be sort of shadow Avengers, just not together and not by name. But after talking about it, we both agreed that this could get us into problems later. You know me, I'm a futurist and Steve, he's the best tactician there is, in the whole world!" Tony looked sappily at Cap, whose face softened and was slowly nearing Tony's.

"Can we get back on track?" said Falcon.

"Right," said Cap. "Tony is a genius, and he saw that both our ideas had some advantage and a really big flaw."

"Yes," said Tony, who blushed when Cap said he was a genius, and his eyes glazed over somewhat. Few of the Avengers suddenly realized why Cap had been hurrying Tony's account of their story. "The big flaw was this," Tony continued, "Solo Avengers and Avengers Avengers, the ones who'd want to be officially under the Power Act, would sooner or later butt heads. The consequences would be devastating if such a thing happened. We're talking about a Superhero War.

Cap nodded in confirmation.

Avengers looked at them both as if horns were sprouting out of their foreheads.

Tony looked down then back at them and said, in a low voice, "You should know, this is not just a tall tale. I consulted a few experts, namely Doctor Strange and Mr. Fantastic. They both threw around the same phrase: Superhero Civil War. Maybe this has nothing to do with our situation, but just the idea..." he shuddered. Cap got closer so that they were elbow to elbow, and whispered something to him. Tony relaxed and a small smile upturned his lips once more.

"The one way we both finally agreed could stop this thing from happening," Cap said, "was to stay together no matter what. Few days ago, while I was doing my daily routine in the gym, Tony came in. In his hand he held this small... contraption. I stopped doing my push ups, he got down on one knee, and said: 'Steve Rogers, I programmed this braking system for my armor because you made me realize it's time to build instead of destroying stuff. Will you do me an honor and build with me, till the rest of our lives?'" There was a tear just about to slide down Cap's face.

"No spills on the wedding suit," said Tony, lightly dabbing at Cap's eye with his golden handkerchief.

Thor and Hulk were sniffling, Hawkeye's eyes were red, the waterfalls started as soon as Cap's story did. Widow was keeping it in, and Falcon was smiling like he wanted to hug the world.

"He said yes." Tony said, grinning. "We... discussed some details on the spot, then took it to my living quarters. I had some ideas for the wedding ceremony, Steve here was really enthusiastic about them..." Cap gently punched him on the arm.

A moment passed. Everyone except Hawkeye briefly looked at something interesting on the carpet.

"So," Tony said, still smiling,"if you'll join us on the roof for a small ceremony? You'll see that some of our friends are already there."  
Cap and Tony led the way, Avengers followed them silently, like dazed ducklings.

On the roof they first met Ant-Man, who was setting up the stage, more accurately, enlarging it. On the already set up podium with a pulpit, stood Captain Marvel - looking great in her dress uniform, with Ms Marvel and her friend Inferno, the three were chatting animatedly. Vision and Doctor Strange were floating above them, talking and looking around, likely for threats and media. On the other side of the roof, Black Panther was coming out of his stealth jet with couple of Dora Milaje.

"I think we're all here,"said Tony.

"Yeah, I think we can start," Cap returned. "If you'll please take your seats," he said to the Avengers and pointed at the chairs Ant-Man had just finished enlarging. They did as they were told. Cap and Tony then gave a sign to Captain Marvel who informed Ms Marvel, Inferno, Vision and Doctor Strange. Black Panther and his entourage were already in their seats.

Captain Marvel took her place behind the pulpit, Cap and Tony in front of it.

"We have gathered here today -" Captain Marvel started.

 

Afterwards, Cap and Tony took Tony's helicopter for a night on one of Tony's private islands. Later, Tony bragged that the arrangement was more spectacular than ever, to Cap's embarrassed blushing.

 

The Avengers happily remained the world's mightiest heroes together and kicked villains' butts better and harder than before. The phrase "Superhero Civil War" never crossed anyone's lips again.

 

-The End-

**Author's Note:**

> Petition to unite all the Steves and Tonies of the multiverse, 3490 style!!


End file.
